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| Just doing some Saturday night sewing while Adam wrestles the kids in their bedrooms right by my desk. |
So I thought it would be fun to document my day. Because people act like it's so hard to do this, but it's really not so hard. And that makes me think maybe I'm doing it wrong??? You tell me.
Between 6-7am Olivia comes in my room (writing this at 7:15 on a Friday morning and no sign of her! This is going to be a good day) and we snuggle and watch netflix until I get up the will to
After I shower and dress (I only wash my hair on Sunday and Wednesday) we're downstairs for breakfast. Olivia eats "plain oatmeal" (raw oatmeal with milk and brown sugar) and I make a pot of cooked oatmeal for Axel, and maybe me depending on how much he wants to eat. I drink two glasses of water before I eat anything (but that belongs in my diet post, not my work post. Sorry) I also unload the dishwasher from the night before so that my dirty dishes have somewhere to go. This system is my favorite.
Axel gets up around 8 if it's a preschool day. I get the feeling he doesn't enjoy this. If left alone he'll sleep until 9 sometimes (He did today!). He eats, Olivia gets dressed for school and we're out the door by 8:55 (and even then sometimes we're early.)
Now I have two free hours with the worlds easiest one-year-old. So I lock the baby gate and he plays while I sew (my work station is in the hallway right next to the two kid bedrooms so we're all sort of in the same space but still separate enough to not bug each other) Yesterday I had no orders (except for five orders, but no sweatshirt fleece yet, thanks to the longest wait ever from fabric.com!) so it was just me and Axel time. We read all of his books and snuggled. When I do sew I keep his pants next to me, and if he comes over to pull out the fabric scraps from my serger, I ask "are you ready to get dressed?" and he runs away to play.
After preschool is lunch time. yep.
After lunch we play for a little bit or watch a little show. Axel takes a nap at 1. Olivia only gets 1 1/2 hours of quiet time, so we have alone time before or after quiet time, just depends. Yesterday we played play doh for an hour and then she had quiet time and fell asleep. During this time I either sew or cut. I love to cut while watching TV, it's my favorite.
When the kids are up, we hang out together, wait for dad to come home OR we have a babysitter and I do more work, like run to the post office or draft a new pattern. Then around 4:30 or 5, Olivia and I cook dinner while Adam tries to keep Axel from screaming. He never eats dinner, but if he's not throwing food on the floor by 5 or 5:30 watch out!
We eat dinner and then one parent takes the kids to play or bathe and the other cleans the kitchen. Usually I do the kitchen because I need a break from kids. After that I put Olivia to bed and Adam takes Axel. Always. Olivia and I like to read for 30 minutes or so. We just finished the Kirsten American Girl books.
And then I work some more. I sew if I need to sew, but usually I cut out a lot of stuff while we watch TV together. If I can get everything cut out at night sewing is so much easier during the day. I go to bed at like 10pm.
Somedays, if I have no orders or I just need it, I announce it's a no work day. And then all the times I wrote about working, I usually do some cleaning. My house may not be perfect, but I really need some order. Downstairs is always 10 (kid free) minutes away from being spotless, even if that means hiding all the clutter in the stair well.
And if things get overwhelming, Adam takes the kids for few hours on Saturday and that's usually all I need to catch up. It will be interesting to see how I handle things as my business grows.
I don't feel guilty working while my children play in the next room over, because I worked full time when Olivia was a baby so I know what a privileged it is just to be near them. I still change the poopy diapers and I can always stop what I'm doing to give a hug and kiss the owie. I think for now, it's the perfect set up.
